We've shown you the past events that created today's landscapes, but
what does the future hold for this continuing story? Tourism based on
the flood is growing rapidly... and of course a future ice age could bring
a whole new series of floods. We will continue to add articles and news
reports to this page that discuss current science, flood-based activities,
and other interesting items that continue the story of Glacial Lake Missoula
and the Ice Age Floods.

Glacial
Lake Missoula National Park?
The Ice Age Floods are not presently represented in the National Park
System or in any other coordinated way. In 1999, through Congress, the
Park Services Special Resource Study Program funded a study of
alternatives for telling the story in the 4-state area. The goal was
to inventory the Flood sites and resources, see if there was a high
level of public interest and participation in telling this dramatic
story, and to recommend to Congress a series of alternatives for creating
and managing coordinated and collaborative interpretive centers relating
to the floods. There was great interest and participation, so the Park
Service is recommending a "park without borders" with interpretive
sites and information kiosks along already established travel routes
throughout the 16,000 square-mile area.
Read more about the proposed Ice
Age Floods National Geologic Region Heritage Trail.

Glacial
Lake Missoula and its Humongous Floods
This new book, generously illustrated with photographs and two-color
maps, follows the path of the floodwaters as they raged from western
Montana across the Idaho Panhandle, then scoured through eastern Washington
and rushed down the Columbia Gorge to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way,
readers can examine glacial lake shorelines, giant current ripples,
now-dry waterfalls that when flowing would have dwarfed Niagara Falls,
and other evidence that led scientists to daring new conclusions about
geologic processes. Author David Alt, a geology professor at the University
of Montana in Missoula, has studied Glacial Lake Missoula and its floods
since the 1960s.
You can buy this book at the Montana Natural History Center.